Tough-guy actor Ermey dies from pneumonia complications

LOS ANGELES — R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine who made a career in Hollywood playing hard-nosed military men like Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” has died.

Ermey’s longtime manager Bill Rogin said the actor died Sunday morning from pneumonia-related complications. He was 74.

The Kanas native was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his memorable performance in “Full Metal Jacket,” immortalizing lines such as “What is your major malfunction?”

He was born Ronald Lee Ermey in 1944. He served 11 years in the Marine Corps and spent 14 months in Vietnam and then in Okinawa, Japan. His first film credit was as a helicopter pilot in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,”

Rogin said that while Ermey’s characters were often hard, the actor was a family man and a kind soul who supported the men and women who serve.